Monday, November 28, 2016

Archangel's Heart (Guildhunter #9) by Nalini Singh

Lijuan has disappeared. One of the Archangels who
controls the planet... leaving her territory apparently ungoverned

Which means the Luminata, a philosophical group who try
to stay out of politics to seek a higher purpose to discuss what to do with the
territory

But when the collected Archangels arrive, it appears the Luminata have lost
their path – and what they’ve done touches intimately with Elena’s life, her
past and her heritage.

I really liked the differing focus of this book. Most of
this series we have had the main focus being on Lijuan and the epic conflict
between the Archangel of death alongside the huge consequences of the Cascade. Lots
of epic, lots of huge battling, lots of death and destruction and trying to
hold things together in the face of literal world ending powers.

It’s epic, it’s huge and it’s nice to take a step back
from that. It’s nice for us to remember there are more problems in this huge
series than just Lijuan and even than just the Cascade. It’s also interesting
to see the Archangels walk around and be the epicness they are.

I honestly expected them to arrive at the Luminata and
face Lijuan. Or some epic power. Or some kind of major, terrifying power;
something that would render the Archangels helpless. Or an Archangel civil war.
In other words, another epic conflict.

But we didn’t go that route – we had legitimate
investigations, we have research and exploration and character interaction and having
no epic displays of megapowers and war. Which let us see more about the
Archangels, more about the world and really exploring the interesting elements
the Luminata brought. Which also allowed a lot of really excellent exploration
of the Archangel attitude towards art, enlightenment, immortality, power, the
value of humanity, autonomy, mind control powers, authority and the issue of
what to do with an imbalanced Archangel council. I liked that, I liked that the
step back allowed us to see these elements.

Another part I really liked about this book is gathering
all the Archangels together and seeing them interact and, generally, be quite
sensible. Ok, Charisemnom is pretty much awful – but he is universally regarded
in contempt because of that. But each of the other Archangels is clearly and
powerfully portrayed as a capable ruler. That includes when they don’t agree
with Elena and Raphael. It’s nice to see these great powers working together and
focusing on politics rather than world war

I think this is really important with Michaela who, after
several books of demonization we see that, while she and Elena are sworn
enemies, that doesn’t mean Michaela is incompetent or terrible or evil. She’s a
capable ruler, she’s even a compassionate ruler and a just one. Her territories
are well managed, safe and even caring. And this doesn’t apply just to Michaela
– when we see Tasha, woman-who-was-once-a-love-interest-of-Raphaels then all
the rules of fiction dictate that Elena and she will hate each other with the
fiery hate of a thousand suns because MAN. And while they don’t like each other
there’s a strong sense of respect between them. They appreciate each other’s strengths
and are good together. It’s almost ridiculous that this is considered an
amazing thing: that adults can disagree with each other without one of them
being a parody of evil.

Similarly, it’s an excellent level of nuance to also have
Neha, the Archangel of India. She and Raphael have a layered relationship with
them both deeply respecting each other but, at the same time, the death of her
daughter means she hates Raphael. Ultimately

The diversity of this book is excellent. We have numerous
female characters who are capable, sensible and fun; but more than that, they’re
not only skilled and involved (and neither all hating each other nor all united
simplistically around one central female protagonist) but skilled and important
and respected in very different from each other. Hannah is very different from
Elena and Tasha and they’re all very different from Michaela and Neha who are,
again, all very different from Calliane.

We also have a very racially diverse archangel council on
top of a very racially diverse general angel and vampire cast, as well as being
set in Morocco which also includes a fair amount of exploration and examination
of Elena’s own history. In the genre we do have some mixed race or biracial
protagonists but we usually see their POC
heritage be completely
underplayed or completely unrecognised beyond some easy “exoticness”. To
have a protagonist with a distant, non-existent POC relative now actually
reconnect with this heritage in a major manor.

Racial diversity is the norm here which is especially
necessary in such a global story – this is a global story which is more than
just white people in exotic locations.

This book was excellent, because it was such a change of
pace from what we’ve seen before in this series. We get to explore the world
the characters a lot more with the change of pace. I like the recharged before,
no doubt, the awesome powerful epicness which is definitely coming in later
books.